Review: Ubuntu 5.04 “Hoary Hedgehog”

In just over 6 months since its initial release, Ubuntu has become one of the most popular Linux distributions. Based on Debian, Ubuntu aims to be a stable, up-to-date platform with a focus on usability and security. Ubuntu is available for the Intel/x86, Apple/PowerPC, AMD64 architectures, and comes packaged as a single installation CD and as a “Live” CD (starting with this release). In this review we look at Ubuntu 5.04 to see why it is creating a lot of excitement in the Linux community.

Ubuntu 5.04 includes the latest GNOME desktop 2.10 (try out Kubuntu if you prefer KDE on your desktop, available at www.kubuntu.org.uk), Evolution 2.2.1, Firefox 1.0.2, OpenOffice.org 1.1.3, X.org 6.8.2 (replacing XFree86), and a 2.6.10 kernel. Other enhancements include faster system startup, improved hardware detection during installation, better support for laptops (e.g., suspend to memory/disk, processor speed scaling), easier package management, and improved documentation.

Installation

Installing Ubuntu from the single installer CD took approximately 55 minutes on a generic PC with a Pentium III 550mhz processor, 512mb memory and a 30gb hard drive. Ubuntu’s default installation configures a desktop system, although options for minimal server or custom hardware configurations are available by pressing F1 at the initial installer prompt.

The text-based installation process has two stages. During the first stage, you make selections for basic settings such as language, keyboard layout and disk partitions. To keep things simple, a single swap partition and a single ext3 partition are created by default. If you prefer a different configuration, just select the ‘manual’ partition edit mode. After the disk is partitioned, packages comprising the base system are installed. This part of the installation took about 14 minutes. All remaining packages are simply copied to disk, to be installed later during the second stage. Finally, the system reboots after the boot-loader (GRUB) is installed and the installation CD is ejected.

The second stage of the installation begins by asking you to create the default system user (not superuser) account. Next, the packages copied to disk from the first stage are installed. This part of the installation took approximately 25 minutes, after which you are presented with the Ubuntu graphical login screen.

Usability

Once you log in, a remarkably uncluttered GNOME desktop greets you. Starting with this release of GNOME, all the usual system icons like “Computer” and “Home” have been moved into the “Places” menu in the panel bar at the top of the screen. The “Trash” icon now appears in the right-hand corner of the panel bar at the bottom of the screen, making it easier to drop items into the trash without minimizing open windows. I found the default desktop theme with gold and copper earth tones to be quite pleasing — perhaps drawing on the African origins of the word Ubuntu.

The “Applications” menu maintains the uncluttered look “n” feel with a well organized set of choices. I really liked the lack of duplication when it came to choosing a particular type of application, whether it was a word processor, web browser or text editor. Most Linux distributions come with multiple applications that serve the same function, confusing newbies and seasoned users alike.

The Nautilus file browser’s behavior has been modified by the Ubuntu engineers such that the parent folder window closes when you double-click a sub-folder inside it. At first, this seems inefficient, especially if you want to copy or move an item from that sub-folder to a parent folder, since the parent folder window isn’t open anymore. This is easily fixed, just use your middle mouse button to double-click (double-middle-click) the sub-folder you want to open, and now the parent folder window stays open.

Most of us tend to use multiple audio applications (e.g., Rhythmbox, Totem, XMMS) simultaneously. Sadly, many Linux distributions don’t configure software audio mixing correctly out-of-the-box. The good news is that Ubuntu 5.04 does! All your standard audio applications can share the sound card without contention.

Finally, a couple of small improvements worth mentioning. First, the “Network Manager” applet makes it very easy to connect to WiFi access points. Second, the “Ubuntu Update Manager” adds a nice complement to the powerful Synaptic package manager, allowing users to keep their system up-to-date with ease.

Security

A fundamental challenge for every aspiring “desktop” Linux distribution is to provide a security model that protects essential system resources from inadvertent damage, and does so unobtrusively. Ubuntu’s security model offers a good balance to newbies and experienced users despite some rough edges.

Ubuntu uses the sudo mechanism to provide administrative privileges to a normal user. Note that only the first user account, created during installation, is part of the “admin” group and therefore able to use sudo. Any user accounts created thereafter are not permitted to use sudo. Even the traditional superuser (root) account is disabled by default (you can’t login as root). Using sudo allows the system to keep track of any system maintenance actions in a logfile (/var/log/auth.log). If something goes wrong, you can always go back and see what commands were run.

All the graphical configuration utilities use sudo. As such, you’ll be prompted to enter a password every time you run one of them. Remember to type in your password. This is a bit confusing since you’re already logged in.

By default, all major network services except SMTP are disabled, although no firewall is active. Were it not for the inactive firewall, this would be ideal for a typical SOHO environment, where a cable-modem is connected directly to the PC.

Conclusion

Invariably, the idea of Linux on the desktop is discredited because of its perceived difficultly for the typical user. Having used Ubuntu 5.04 for a few weeks now, I’d say that Linux on the desktop is becoming a reality for the average user. I was able to do most of my work without using the command-line. Now that’s progress!